Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim

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Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim (born February 1, 1781 in Königsberg , † October 10, 1863 in Dresden ) was a German banker and sponsor of Gottfried Semper .

Life

Rosa Oppenheim, around 1830, by August Grahl (1792–1868)
Summer villa in Holzhofgasse in Äußere Neustadt
Palais Oppenheim, Bürgerwiese 5–7
Oppenheim's grave in the Trinity cemetery in Dresden

His mother Henriette, called Jette (1756–1832), was born Goldschmidt from Hamburg . Her husband, Oppenheim's father, was the banker Wolff (Mendel) Oppenheim (1753–1828), a trader and banker from Königsberg. Both Wolff and his brother Mendel (1758–1820) - who later married Henriette Itzig (1767–1842), daughter of Daniel Itzig - took the name of the stepfather Susskind Oppenheim (1732–1809).

After the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), Königsberg was a cosmopolitan, attractive and also foreign-friendly city, especially for business activities. After the emancipation edict of 1812 , families of Königsberg's Jewish community , such as the private bankers of the Simons, Oppenheim and Warsaw families, were the most important and influential bearers of the entire credit system until the pre-industrialization and early industrialization.

The founders of the Königsberg-Berlin banking family Oppenheim converted from the Jewish to the Christian faith and were baptized when their children were baptized. So also M. W. Oppenheim, who with the baptism, together with his wife Rosa, geb. Alexander (1792–1849), on April 7, 1826, dropped the name Mendel Wolff and now called himself Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim. As a sign of continuity, Christian first names starting with the Jewish letters were chosen.

Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim, partner in the Königsberg trading and banking house Oppenheim & Warschauer , placed the banking business in the hands of his son Rudolph Oppenheim , who had learned the trade. This was founded in Königsberg in 1803 and was headed from 1805 by his brother-in-law Marcus Warschauer .

Those who had achieved wealth and prestige within the Königsberg Jewry often moved to Berlin, where there were numerous family ties. So Martin Wilhelm, he called himself Partikulier , moved to Berlin, where the Oppenheim family had shifted their focus. After a short stay there, he lived on Behrenstrasse , he decided to follow his daughter Elisabeth Grahl to Dresden. His large means and the beauty of his wife Rosa prompted him, on the advice of his son-in-law August Grahl , to order two magnificent houses for winter and summer from Gottfried Semper. He met him in the winter of 1829/30 on a trip to Rome and commissioned him to make portraits of his wife and daughter.

Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim was one of the wealthiest residents of Dresden in the 19th century and was a member of a large number of artistic and literary associations and also formed his own circle. Semper may have owed the contract to build the Dresden synagogue to his acquaintance with Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim. In 1851 he was accepted as a member of the sociable literary association of the Monday Society , which was predominantly shaped by artists, musicians and writers. Ferdinand Hiller had founded a debating club of witty people in 1845, which was called Hiller crowns , from which the Monday Society emerged . This was constituted in December 1846 and they met every week in the “Engels Restauration und Billard” on Postplatz .

In 1839 he had Semper build the summer villa. The " Villa Rosa ", named after his wife Rosa, was a suburban villa in the Äußere Neustadt (Antonstadt) of Dresden on Holzhofgasse, near the later rose garden on the Elbe. Semper designed it based on the 16th century Villa Rotonda in Vicenza by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). When this summer house was finished, Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim moved to Dresden in 1840, moved into the Villa Rosa and took the daughter's whole family inside.

From 1845 to 1848 the " Oppenheim'schen Palais " was built in the neo-renaissance style at Bürgerwiese 5–7. He and his wife Rosa lived on the first floor and the young Grahl family lived on the mezzanine floor .

Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim died of a stroke in his Villa Rosa at the age of 83 . The Grahls could not keep the villas alone, so the Oppenheim heirs decided to sell them. Baron von Kap-herr , who came from St. Petersburg and whose sons had goods near Dresden, bought the Palais Oppenheim with all its inventory and asked the Grahls to stay at a low rent. Long after the death of Martin Oppenheim, the palace was rebuilt from 1871 to 1874 according to plans by W. Hoffmann for Emma von Kaskel, a daughter of the Cologne banker Simon von Oppenheim . The Villa Rosa property went to Freiherr Wilhelm Georg von Warburg .

On behalf of the Oppenheim family, Semper designed the grave site at the Trinitatisfriedhof , in which, in addition to Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim and his wife Rosa, his daughter Elisabeth and her husband, the miniature painter August Grahl , their son Hugo Grahl with his wife Anna, née Kummer, and Alexe Grahl were buried. A bronze relief of the late Rosa Oppenheim by Ernst Rietschel decorates the middle steep face.

family

  • The first son Rudolph Oppenheim (1811–1871) merchant and banker, married Dorothea Heimann (born 1818). He took over the bank “Oppenheim & Warschauer”, associated himself with his cousin Robert Warschauer , separated from him and moved his business to “R. Oppenheim & Co. ”from Königsberg to Berlin.
  • The only daughter Elisabeth Julie Oppenheim (1813–1905) married the painter August Grahl in 1832 . She was friends with Hans Christian Andersen and campaigned for the printing of his fairy tales.
  • The second son Adolph Oppenheim (1816-1894) became a farmer and manor owner, married his cousin Marie Josephine (1820-1883), daughter of the banker Marcus Warschauer and sister of Robert Warschauer.
  • The third son Otto Georg Oppenheim (1817–1909) became a lawyer and in 1843 married Margarethe (1823–1890), daughter of the banker Alexander Mendelssohn . Margarete's sister, Marie Josephine Mendelssohn (1822–1891) was married to Robert Warschauer ; this was both the son of the partner Marcus Warschauer, and son of the sister Rebecca of Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim.
  • Alexander Oppenheim (1819–1898), lawyer and photographer, remained unmarried. He and his cousin Arnold Mendelssohn came to Königsberg as young trainees and became known for the so-called cassette theft for Countess Hatzfeld , a friend of Lassalle .

literature

  • Jacob Jacobson: The Jewish Citizens' Books of the City of Berlin 1809-1851. Walter de Gruyter, 1962

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Lehmann: The painter family Robert Kummer and August Grahl in Dresden. Fichter, HW (2010), ISBN 978-3-9814935-0-4 , pp. 190, 191
  2. ↑ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: The Jewish minority in Königsberg / Pr., 1871 to 1945. Göttingen, 1996, p. 33
  3. ↑ Dirk Hempel: Literary Associations in Dresden: Cultural Practice and Political Orientation of the Bourgeoisie in the 19th Century (Studies and Texts on the Social History of Literature), De Gruyter, 2008, ISBN 3484351160 , p. 83
  4. ^ Trinity cemetery, wall grave III. Department / east side
  5. ↑ The cassette affair (private website)
personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Martin Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oppenheim, Mendel Wolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1781
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1863
Place of death Dresden